Nate Jackman - Be Watchful of Iron Deficiency in Baby Pigs

Nate Jackman, livestock specialist at MWI Veterinarian Supply, said producers should check the iron level in their piglet herd and be watchful of anemic pigs.

- Hi this is Sarah Mikesell
with thepigsite.com

and today we're here with Nate Jackman.

He is a livestock specialist
with MWI Veterinarian Supply.

Thanks for being with us today, Nate.

- Thank you.

- So you're out with farmers, producers,

on a daily basis with your position.

Tell us a little bit about
what trends you're seeing.

What industry trends
are going on out there.

- Well currently, one thing I've been

talking a lot about with
veterinarians and producers

is iron deficiency in baby pigs.

Something we've been
doing is we've been going

into some producers, into some sal units

and we've been doing hemoglobin tests

on these baby pigs and
what we've been finding

is that these pigs are
anemic and deficient in iron

and that we're trying to
get the word out there

that the weening weight of
a baby pig is a lot greater

than it was 30, 40 years ago.

But our protocol, there's a
lot of protocols out there

still recommending the same amount of iron

that we gave them 30-40 years ago.

So what we're doing is we're testing pigs,

baby pigs, healthy, big, baby pigs

and we're finding that
those pigs are anemic

and they need another dose of iron

so what we're recommending
to veterinarians

and producers is that we
give a 200 milligram dose

at day one and we give
another 200 milligram dose

at day 14 and give that pig enough iron

before we ween that pig and
send it off to the nursery.

So that's one thing that
I've been talking a lot about

and fortunately I work
with a lot of producers

that are open to that,
open to the fact that,

hey show me something that's not working

that we're doing and let's try to fix it

and we've been doing pin side tests,

in these sal units, and
testing them with a HemoCue,

a hemoglobin test unit.
- Yep.

- A two or three minute
test, and we find out

if that pig is deficient
or not and we kind of

pick pigs at random and
then we show the data

to them afterwards and show them, that yes

these pigs are anemic.

So that's one of the
trends going on right now.

I don't think that out
of a half a dozen farms

that we've been on that
we really been surprised

but we have surprised our producers

and I think we've changed a lot of minds

and a lot of protocols.

- It sounds like diagnostics is playing

a bigger role in what
you're doing these days.

- Yes ma'am, that diagnostics is big,

because it's not so much the sales rep

coming in here saying,
hey you gotta do this,

you gotta do this, and they think okay,

the sales rep just
trying to sell products.

What we're trying to do is
let the science prove itself.

Here's the data and these
are your pigs we're testing

so we're just letting the
science speak for itself.

- Very good, excellent, well thank you

so much for your time today Nate.

- Thank you.

- Very good, this is Sarah
Mikesell, with thepigsite.com.